The horror genre in film creates all sorts of perplexing forms of entertainment. Audiences willingly expose themselves to fear and discomfort, which has been a recurring motif for my selected texts. As a horror lover myself, I sometimes find myself asking the question “why do we seek out these horrifying experiences?” After searching for and reading different texts, I realized many of them focused on theories exploring the appeal of horror. One in particular stood out to me and delved deep into the topic. Katerina Bantinaki’s “The Paradox of Horror: Fear as a Positive Emotion” argues about the cognitive approach, which seems to suggest that curiosity and intellectual satisfaction of uncovering the unknown are central. And the emotional approach, which claims that the emotional responses drawn from horror are in fact key to enjoying the genre.
Noël Carroll, as discussed by Katerina Bantinaki, offers a cognitive explanation for the appeal of horror. One recurring motif in horror fiction which was discussed by Noël Carroll and referenced in Bantinaki’s work, is the idea of monsters as beings that lie, “outside our standing conceptual schemes” (Bantinaki, 384). This motif of the “other” (creatures that violate the boundaries of normal human experience) is significant since it connects with a universal cognitive drive to understand the unfamiliar. The horror genre repeatedly presents monsters that challenge our understanding of reality. From the alien in Alien (1979) to the demonic possession in The Exorcist (1973). These creatures embody both fear and fascination while their nature invites an audiences to engage intellectually as well as emotionally. Carroll’s argument highlights the cognitive pleasure of making the “unknown known” by suggesting that the primary draw of horror is found in curiosity. As Bantinaki explains, “the pleasure derived from horror fiction is cognitive” (384). This means that audiences are intrigued by the monster’s existence/behavior and they actively look for resolution through the narrative’s unfolding. The pattern of presenting a monstrous entity and then revealing its nature mirrors the process of scientific discovery where understanding and explanation serve as a reward for enduring the discomfort of the unknown. This recurring narrative structure can be seen across numerous horror texts and reinforces Carroll’s theory: horror is driven by human’s desire for cognitive clarity.
In contrast to Carroll’s cognitive approach, Katerina Bantinaki emphasizes the emotional responses horror provokes in its audiences. She suggests that it is this emotional engagement (not just curiosity) that lies at the heart of the genre’s appeal. A recurring motif in horror films is the intense emotional experience of fear and relief – emotions that fluctuate with the rise and fall of suspenseful sequences. This emotional rollercoaster is central to the audience’s experience since they are not only intellectually engaged but also emotionally invested. Bantinaki argues that “it is doubtful whether audiences indeed derive mostly cognitive and thus dispassionate pleasurable experiences in response to horror fiction” (384). The visceral fear experienced while watching a film like Jaws or Silence of the Lambs cannot be reduced to cognitive process. Instead, the motif of emotional highs and lows plays a crucial role in the horror narrative. The pattern of building fear and releasing it through climactic moments is essential to the genre’s rhythm, which gives the audience a sense of catharsis as they confront and survive the threat alongside the characters.
Works Cited
Bantinaki, Katerina. “The Paradox of Horror: Fear as a Positive Emotion.” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 70, no. 4, 2012, pp. 383–92.